From Tokyo to Tokyo, via Paris

For all athletes, the sport is a series of cycles. There’s the annual 12-month cycle as they bring themselves towards a peak for the year’s biggest championship. Then there’s the four-year cycle, filled with various staging points along the way as they try to be at their best at the Olympic Games. 

This time around, that Olympic cycle feels a little different. 

The pandemic threw the established timeline and natural rhythm out of whack, the 12-month postponement of the Tokyo Games causing the World Athletics Championships in Oregon to shift from 2021 to 2022. The knock-on effect is that for the first time ever, athletics has a major global championship for five consecutive years. 

It began in Tokyo, in August 2021, and will finish in September next year with the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25. And so, as everyone draws breath from the Paris Olympics, in all its unforgettable brilliance, the focus starts to turn back to the Japanese capital, where the stands will be packed in a way that simply wasn’t possible in 2021. 

It should be one heck of a show. 

Longevity is a hard thing to achieve in athletics, especially if we’re talking about staying at the top of your event, and a scan back through the four global championships between the Tokyo and Paris Olympics shows just how difficult it is to maintain dominance. 

Even with the shortened three-year cycle, just eight individual champions from Tokyo successfully defended their Olympic titles in Paris: Valarie Allman, Ryan Crouser, Mondo Duplantis, Soufiane El Bakkali, Faith Kipyegon, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Miltiadis Tentoglou and Nafi Thiam.

But if we’re to raise the bar even more to see who won gold at all four championships from 2021-2024 – in Tokyo, Oregon, Budapest and Paris – the list has just four members: Kipyegon in the 1500m, Duplantis in the pole vault, Crouser in the shot put and El Bakkali in the steeplechase. 

Of course, some like McLaughlin-Levrone, Thiam and triple jumper Yulimar Rojas missed out on the chance to join them due to injury, and honourable mentions must go to Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Joshua Cheptegei, who won gold at all four events but in different disciplines. Ingebrigtsen won the Olympic 1500m in Tokyo and proved unbeatable over 5000m in Oregon, Budapest and Paris, while Cheptegei won the 5000m in Tokyo and the 10,000m in Oregon, Budapest and Paris. 

Then there’s Sifan Hassan, who won Olympic 5000m and 10,000m gold in Tokyo and marathon gold in Paris, along with bronze in the 1500m in Tokyo and in the 5000m and 10,000m in Paris.

It’s clear what it takes to create an uninterrupted run of dominance: an outlying talent, a highly-motivated individual, but also a big slice of luck when it comes to injuries. The four who’ve never faltered when it matters most since the Tokyo Games are testament to that, proof of just how special you have to be to get it right year after year after year after year, seeing off all-comers to stay on top. 

Of those four, Kipyegon, Duplantis and Crouser are in an ultra-exclusive club: world record-holders, reigning world champions and reigning Olympic champions. Kipyegon and Crouser claimed their third straight Olympic titles in Paris. Duplantis and El Bakkali won their second.

Given their ages, it’s possible all four could still be at the top come the Los Angeles Games in 2028. But before we look too far ahead, given the myriad things that can go wrong in an athlete’s career, it’s best to focus on 2025, because it’s one year, one month and one day until the World Athletics Championships begin in Tokyo. 

Can Crouser, Duplantis, El Bakkali and Kipyegon stay on top and complete the cycle with a remarkable five global titles? Let’s look at their chances one by one. 

Ryan Crouser – a champion of champions

No shot putter in history had ever won three Olympic titles, but then there’s never been a shot putter like the 31-year-old Oregon native, who has repositioned the boundaries of his event while also reinventing what’s considered best practice with technique.

If ever things were starting to line up against Crouser, it was in 2024. He injured the ulnar nerve in his throwing elbow in March then tore a pectoral muscle while bench pressing in April. 

It was only in June that he was given the green light to start throwing again and yet, he found a way to win the US Olympic Trials, launching 22.84m to book his place in Paris. But Crouser had been down this road before. In Budapest last year he launched a whopping 23.51m to win the world title despite dealing with painful blood clots in his leg during the build-up. In Paris, he didn’t need to be at his best to win gold, his fourth-round effort of 22.90m handing him victory by a whopping 75cm. Given that margin, who could possibly bet against him completing a quintuple of consecutive global outdoor titles in Tokyo?

Faith Kipyegon – queen of the 1500m

Long before she kicked off the front to victory in the Olympic final in Paris, the 30-year-old Kenyan was regarded as the greatest 1500m runner of all time. The manner of her victory at the Stade de France only cemented that. In truth, no one has got close to her over her specialist distance since the last Olympics. In Tokyo she won by 1.39 seconds. In Oregon it was 1.56 seconds. In Budapest it was 0.82 seconds, while in Paris it was 1.27 seconds, and that was with a hard effort in the 5000m – where she won silver – already in the legs. 

The reality of racing Kipyegon is there is no way to beat her when she’s in this form. She has the world record so can’t be dropped no matter the pace others run, but she also has the best change of gear and in Paris, she utilised the latter to leave the rest of the world running for silver. If she stays healthy over the coming 12 months, it’s very, very difficult to see how anyone can knock the 1500m queen off her throne in Tokyo.

Soufiane El Bakkali – the steeplechase king

The Moroccan star might have placed just off the podium at his first Olympics in Rio, finishing fourth, but he’s ruled the Olympic domain ever since.

For his rivals, the 28-year-old presents a similar dilemma to Kipyegon. He has a PB of 7:56.68 and while his greatest rival Lamecha Girma, the world record-holder, is four seconds faster, the Ethiopian along with everyone else has yet to succeed in dropping El Bakkali in major championship finals. The quickest he needed to run among those four titles was his 8:03.53 winning time in Budapest last year. 

And if you can’t get rid of El Bakkali before the last lap, he’s shown time and again that his slick hurdling technique and wicked closing speed makes him almost impossible to stop once he gets to the bell in contention. Girma, who had a fall on the last lap in Paris, looks best placed to lower his colours in Tokyo next year, but it will likely require a chance of tactics to do so and even then, it might not be enough. 

Mondo Duplantis – the peerless pole vaulter

Perhaps Sam Kendricks put it best. Shortly after Duplantis opened his 2024 outdoor season with a world record of 6.24m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, the two-time world champion said of his friend and rival: “He’s playing with a different set of cards. He’s got God’s hand on his back.”

Whatever your religious persuasion, everyone will agree the Swedish 24-year-old has an otherworldly helping of natural talent, which he has refined and honed through years of hard work and discipline to become what he’s increasingly considered: the greatest pole vaulter of all time. In Tokyo three years ago, he won the Olympic title by 5cm. In Oregon he won by 27cm. In Budapest he won by 10cm while in Paris, he had a whopping 30cm to spare over the silver medallist, Kendricks.

Two of those four gold medals came with world records (Oregon and Paris), and as the focus shifts back to Tokyo, it’s increasingly difficult to see anyone getting close to Duplantis should he have a clear run with his health on the road there. Just like Crouser, Kipyegon and El Bakkali, he can return to the Japanese capital and crown a five-year cycle of dominance that would cement his status as one of the sport’s all-time greats.

Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics